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  Only the Ring didn’t like Nick. All it liked was his money.

  His money. “ Lydia!” he shouted, shaking his left arm free long enough to dig his phone from his pocket. “Here,” he said, tossing it awkwardly toward her.

  For a second she fumbled, then caught it in a solid grip. “Who do I call?” she shouted back, flipping it open.

  “Phone list one-second entry,” Nick said, stumbling as the third Maiden got a fresh grip on his left arm and pulled him another step closer to the river. The one who’d been tugging on his ankle abandoned that approach and moved instead to Nick’s right arm, and now Alberich had two sets of hands and teeth to fight off. “Input trader passcode 352627.”

  Lydia nodded and leaned over the phone. The Maiden on Nick’s left arm shifted one hand to his belt. He kicked at her legs; it was like kicking a pair of oak saplings. “I’m in,” Lydia called.

  “There are five funds listed.” On Nick’s right arm, one of the two Maidens opened her mouth and lowered the pointed teeth toward the Ring. Nick cringed, but Alberich slapped the creature’s cheek and shoved her back again. “Transfer everything in the first four into the fifth.”

  “What are you doing?” Alberich demanded, frowning at Nick in sudden suspicion.

  “The Ring doesn’t like me,” Nick said. “It just likes my money.”

  “What?” The dwarf spun toward Lydia. “No!” Abandoning Nick’s arm, he charged toward Lydia.

  And suddenly Nick was fighting all three Maidens by himself. “Alberich!” he shouted as they dragged him toward the river. “Help me!”

  “For what?” the dwarf spat, lunging for the phone. But Lydia was faster, twisting and turning and keeping it out of his reach even as she continued punching in numbers. “Seventy percent of nothing? She’s throwing it all away, isn’t she?”

  “She’s transferring it into my charity distribution account,” Nick said. His feet were in the icy water now, the Maiden on his left arm already in up to her knees. “All the Ring cares about is money. And as of right now-”

  “You’re broke!” Lydia shouted in triumph. “You hear me, Ring? He’s broke.”

  Spinning away from Lydia, Alberich threw himself back at the Ring. “Get away from the Ring!” he shouted.

  “The Ring is ours,” the Maidens chorused in their eerie unison.

  “It’s mine!” Alberich snarled, grabbing Nick’s wrist.

  Something cold ran up Nick’s back, something having nothing to do with the water swirling around his feet. Lydia was right-with all his money now in the irrevocable trust fund, he had nothing left in the world.

  But the Ring still wasn’t letting go.

  “Is this how you want to die?” Alberich demanded, pulling at Nick’s arm with one hand as he shoved at the Maidens with the other. “Drowned in the Rhine by ancient creatures who have nothing left but hate and greed? There’s still time for us to make a deal.”

  “I don’t want a deal,” Nick said. He was knee deep in the river now, the numbingly cold water threatening to cramp his calf muscles. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Lydia doing something with the phone. “I don’t want money. All I want-”

  And without any warning at all, the Ring came loose.

  Nick’s arms were still pinioned, but for the moment no one was gripping his hand. With a desperate flick of his wrist, he sent the Ring arcing into the air toward the center of the river and the Rhinemaidens’ rock. “No!” Alberich screeched, diving toward it.

  But the Maidens were ready. Two of them twisted their arms around the dwarf’s neck and dragged him into the river, swimming backwards toward their rock. The third Maiden dove into and then out of the water like a dolphin, reaching up and catching the Ring in midair as it fell. For a moment she held it triumphantly aloft, then turned and disappeared with her sisters beneath the waves.

  And then Lydia was at Nick’s side, pulling at his now aching arms, helping him back to the shore. “What did you do?” Nick asked, shivering violently. The storm, he noticed, was starting to abate. “How did you get it to let go?”

  “You had no money,” she told him, wrapping her arm around his waist and leading him toward the cliff where their car waited. “But you still had the potential to earn it all back.”

  He nodded in understanding. “So you fired me.”

  “I text-messaged your resignation to Sonnerfeld Thompkins,” she confirmed. “I guess it’ll never be Sonnerfeld Thompkins Powell now. I’m sorry.”

  Nick blinked a few lingering drops of water from his eyes. “I’m not. Thank you.”

  “I’m glad it worked.” She paused. “Nick… your phone list. Number two was your online investment number, three and four and five were Sonnerfeld and your office. Number one…”

  “Is you,” Nick confirmed with a tired sigh. “You’ve always been number one. I just forgot that for awhile.”

  She squeezed his hand. His aching, ringless, free hand. “Come on,” she said softly. “Let’s go home.”

  WHAT QUIG FOUND by Chris Pierson

  This all happened at a restaurant in Rhode Island, the name of which I don’t care to recall.

  Well, actually I do recall it. I just can’t tell you what it is.

  I’ll explain.

  What happened there caused a bit of what my mother would call a foofaraw, which means publicity, and not the kind a major restaurant chain enjoys. So the first time I tried to get this story published, I mentioned the name, and next thing there were cease-and-desist orders flying, and… well, they’re a multinational corporation worth billions. I’m a database programmer with student loans and a car to pay off. You tell me who’d win in court. So turns out I can’t tell you where the story takes place.

  Ah, narrative in the modern era.

  But I can tell you the type of restaurant I’m talking about. It’s the sort of joint that always springs up in that special kind of strip-mall hell you find in the suburbs. The kind you find next door to the mini-golf course, where they play bad classic rock and serve fajitas and triple cheeseburgers and other things sure to kill you before you start collecting Social Security.

  They’re also the kind where there isn’t a square inch of wall that isn’t covered in some old piece of random junk. Pair of snowshoes, washing board, stuffed wolverine, Alaskan license plate. You know the sort. They always have a cute name, like J.P. Fern-stubble’s Goode Tyme Emporium, or Holy Crap, It’s Still Thursday’s. You’ve probably eaten there, then spent the evening scrounging for antacid.

  Anyway, I used to work about half a mile from a place like that. Little startup company, sold baby products online. I’ll spare you the glamorous details. This was back in ’99, before the tech bubble popped, and half of America was made up of little places like that, with way more venture capital than clue. Since Footwell McBucketfish’s Olde-Style Roadhouse was just down the street, my team went there for drinks after work. A lot.

  So there we were, five of us. There was me-I’m Jered, by the way-and the rest of my crew. Rick was one of the company founders, a burnout who didn’t get any work done. Gabby was the best user interface programmer I’ve ever met, but she hated her job and spent half her time using the office copier to make dupes of her résumé. Ravi did server work; he moved to Canada last year after some drunk morons who thought he was Iraqi set fire to his lawn.

  And then there was Alex Quigley. We called him Quig. He was our project lead, and he was older than us-fiftyish, a bit fat and nerdy (in a tech company, you say? Egad!), on his second career. Good guy to work for. He used to be an actor, when he was my age; he even did a little off-Broadway before he got tired of being poor.

  We were regulars at the Muggawugga Gulch Saloon, which meant we had a regular booth, with a waitress named Donna. She brought us oversized margaritas and their special chili-cheese-’n’-bacon fries (“They’re Defibrillicious!”) and kept the families with shrieking babies at least three tables away. We never tipped her less than twenty percent.

  �
��Rough day?” she asked that rainy night, setting down our second round of drinks. “You all look like you just found out Jar Jar Binks was going to be back in the next Star Wars.”

  Nerd humor. Usually it got a laugh, but all we could manage were pained grimaces.

  “God,” said Ravi. “Don’t depress us even more.”

  “Quig got yelled at,” Gabby said, and shrugged. “But what else is new?”

  Rick took a long pull off his beer. “Nah. It’s bad this time.”

  We all looked at Quig. He and the CEO had had a blowup that afternoon. See, the CEO thought we should all be working sixteen-hour days until we shipped our product. Quig thought that was just going to make us tired and sloppy, which meant delays. It got to shouting, and Quig lost. Now he looked as though someone had stolen his car in order to run over his dog.

  “You gonna get fired?” Donna asked.

  Quig shook his head and sighed, watching his margarita melt. “That’d be too merciful.”

  “They’re setting him up to fail,” I said. “They want someone to blame.”

  “I told them from the start: Fast, Cheap, Good-you only get to pick two,” Quig said, and shook his head. “But these guys have MBAs, so they knew better.”

  “So now we’re gonna work our asses off on something we know is gonna fail, and Quig’ll take the fall,” Rick said. He raised his drink. “To the New Economy.”

  That got a few morbid laughs. We toasted with Rick-everyone but Quig. He just sat still, moping.

  “Jeez.” Donna touched his shoulder. “You should just quit. Life’s too short for that crap. I’ll get you some Alamo Massacre Wings. You eat ’em, the pain’ll take your mind off things.”

  Quig looked up at her and managed a smile. “Thanks, D. You’re a peach.”

  Off she went, dodging a table of half-drunk biker-looking dudes a short way away. There was a lot of shouting, and one of the bikers tried to grab Donna’s ass, but she escaped and vanished toward the kitchen.

  “Jackasses,” Gabby muttered, giving the drunks a dirty look.

  “Donna’s right,” Ravi told Quig. “You should walk.”

  “I can’t do that to you guys,” Quig replied. “They’ll ride you into the ground without me there.”

  Rick finished his beer. “It’s happening anyway. It’s not like you’re protecting us from anything.”

  “Jesus, Rick,” Gabby said.

  “What?” he shot back. “It’s true. Or are we not staying for ‘Productivity Nights’ starting next Monday?”

  “All right, enough,” I said. “We talk about work any more, I’m going to jam this fork in my eye. Who’s up for a game of Spot the Tchotchke?”

  I’d come up with Spot the Tchotchke one day after realizing the stuff on the walls of Q.T. von Thunder-pants’s Publick Haus wasn’t always the same from one week to the next. Believe it or not, they add and remove things on a regular basis-I don’t know if they rotate it between restaurants, or buy new junk, or what. I suspect magic gnomes are involved, but that’s just a guess.

  Anyway, in Spot the Tchotchke, you take turns trying to find stuff that wasn’t there last time you visited. Whoever finds the weirdest thing gets their meal paid for by the rest of the table.

  “I’m in,” said Ravi, and pointed across the room. “New traffic sign over there. Armadillo Crossing, I think.”

  “That’s an aardvark,” Gabby said, squinting.

  “Even better. Beat it.”

  “Easy,” she said. “There, behind that flock of teenagers. That’s an old medieval instrument called a serpent.”

  I looked. The teens were busy throwing food at each other and generally acting like idiots. Hanging nearby, smeared with ketchup, was a wavy thing that looked like a clarinet that had been in an accident.

  “Advantage: Gabby,” I said. “Obscure musical instrument beats road sign.”

  “Does not!” Ravi protested.

  “It’s in the rulebook.” There was no book, of course, but as the game’s creator, I made the call. “Anyone else?”

  “Got you all beat,” said Rick. “Look up.”

  I did, and flinched. Poised above me, like I was Damocles or something, was a huge pair of old, rusty blades. I mean, the suckers were big. “What the hell?” I asked.

  “Gelding shears,” Rick said. “They used to use ’em on horses.”

  There was a moment’s silence. I shuddered.

  “… annnnnd I’m vegetarian tonight,” said Ravi.

  Everyone accepted that Rick had taken the lead. “I’m not even going to try to top that,” I said. We turned to Quig, who was still poking at his half-thawed margarita. “How about you, boss? Can you beat the Amazing De-stallionizers?”

  “Hmmm?” he asked.

  “Come on, Quig,” said Gabby, shaking his arm. “We’re trying to cheer you up. Can you see anything stranger than those godawful things?”

  Quig sighed, glanced at the shears, then started scanning the room. He usually won the game. He had a good eye for weirdness. I watched him go from wall, to wall, to…

  “Mother of God,” he said.

  “What?” we asked.

  Saying nothing, he got up and went over toward the bar. There was a ghastly old puppet that must have provided nightmare fuel for kids fifty years ago, and I thought he was going for that, but instead he reached to the right and picked up something else. He brought it back to the table.

  It was round and wide, a tarnished disc of brass with a deep bowl in the middle and what looked like a bite out of the rim. He held it up.

  “I give you the Golden Helmet of Mambrino,” he said.

  “The who of the what now?” I asked.

  “You never read Cervantes?”

  I gave him a look. “Sorry. I’m still working my way through the collected works of Proust. Come on, Quig. That thing’s just an old bowl.”

  “Close,” he said, his eyes shining. “Shaving basin. You put your throat in the niche, here, fill it with water, and a barber shaves you.”

  “I thought it was a helmet,” Gabby said.

  “It is. Don Quixote. He met a barber on the road, and he thought the man’s basin was a famous helmet. He wore it on his head after that. Like so.”

  He raised it, ready to put on the bowl. Other tables were staring at him now. So was the restaurant manager, a beefy, humorless guy named Stan who rumbled toward us from across the room. “Hey!” he yelled. “What have I told you guys about taking stuff off the walls?”

  People at the other tables chuckled. Quig turned a little red, then lowered the bowl-basin-whatever-and handed it to Stan. “My apologies, good sir,” he said. “It was not my intent to weigh upon the hospitality of your inn.”

  Ravi nearly folded up, he was laughing so hard. The others at least tried to contain it. I wiped tears from my eyes as Stan took back the basin and rumbled away.

  “I say my thing still beats that,” Rick said.

  “Nah,” I replied. “The demonstration put it over the top. You win, Quig.”

  Rick gave me a dark look. “I could arrange a demonstration…”

  “Easy, now,” Gabby said. “Where’d you find out about the helmet, Quig?”

  Quig watched Stan hang the basin back on the wall. “Oh, I played the Don once, in a production of Man of La Mancha. Dinner theater in Connecticut, back in the eighties.”

  “Ah,” Ravi said, still laughing. “Glamour.”

  “Shut up,” Gabby told him.

  Quig wasn’t listening. He’d gone back in time. “I got to wear the helmet every night, and sing ‘The Impossible Dream.’ ” He hesitated, then sighed as he sat down again. “And I gave that up for e-Baby.”

  “At least you’ve got me, hon,” said Donna, coming back over. She was older than most waitresses at Chuckles Feeblebuzzard’s Cholesterol Hut, maybe forty, and still good-looking. She flirted with Quig constantly-and not, I got the feeling, just because he tipped well. She set down a plate of wings that gave off eyeball-melting fumes
and another round of drinks. “You guys know what you want?”

  We told Donna our orders. She gave Quig another wink and went back toward the kitchen. We laid into the wings-all but Ravi, who kept looking up at the shears.

  As we were eating, I noticed Quig glancing back at the basin. “You could go back to it, you know,” I said after a while. “Acting, I mean. Give up this crap, sell your condo, try again. God, you could probably put together your own little troupe of disenchanted programmers, tour the country.”

  “I’d join,” said Gabby. Rick, sucking meat off a bone, nodded too.

  Quig shook his head. “It’s a hard life, J. I can’t go back to cinder-block furniture and insta-noodles for dinner.”

  But then he looked at the basin again.

  By that point, Donna was on her way with our food. With the drinks and all, the tray must have weighed twenty pounds, but she carried it one-handed, weaving through the place like it was nothing. And the damn thing is, I saw what was about to happen, saw the biker-types snickering, but I froze up and couldn’t say anything until it was too late.

  It all went in slow motion, like so:

  The biker who nearly grabbed her ass before, a fat guy with a bushy beard that looked like his neck had thrown up, gives it another shot. And this time Donna can’t get away. He gets a handful. She stumbles. The tray rocks, she twists, her ankle rolls, and down she goes-along with about a hundred dollars’ worth of greasy food and frozen drinks. She doesn’t make a sound, but glasses smash and cutlery clatters and plates go crrrang, and there’s about a fifteen-foot spray of fries and ice and Krazy Tequila Lime Dippin’ Sauce splatted across the floor. Somehow, she manages to miss all the customers. The noise is ridiculous-and all the talking and laughing stops, just a lousy Foreigner song playing in the background. Count to three, and no one moves.

  Then someone says something. It’s one of the food-throwing teens. “Two points!” he shouts.

  The idiot teens laugh and go back to flinging onion rings. But everyone else is paralyzed-even the bikers, who stare at Donna, sprawled on the tiles. Mortified.

  I stare, too. Your brain just kinda locks.